


If It Breaks Your Heart

by fiveroundsrapid



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveroundsrapid/pseuds/fiveroundsrapid
Summary: A small thing born of watching the next week trailer. Warning... angst.





	If It Breaks Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to my awesome beta ktlsyrtis x

“Did you even love my mum?” Cameron raged, cold and calculated. Serena’s face fell, her breath catching in her mouth. He could blame her for Bernie leaving, he could do much and she would forgive him because he was Bernie’s son, and he was in pain, and if Serena Campbell didn’t understand the pain caused by the sudden death of a loved one, then who would? If she had to step up and give a eulogy, then she would. If she had to deal with Alex Dawson, then she would, even if it broke her heart to hear how happy Bernie had been in those last few months.

But it had been a trying week, and Cameron Dunn could not say that she never loved Bernie Wolfe. That was out of order. That was her breaking point. Serena grabbed Cameron by the arm, not tightly, but enough to make him move out from the ward and into the entrance, near the stairs.

“Of  _ course  _ I loved your mother.” Her voice was low, every syllable enunciated with severance because that was one thing that could  _ never  _ be questioned. Not by anyone. Serena had once told people that Bernie Wolfe was the greatest love she had ever known. That had never changed, and for better or worse, that had been why Serena had let her go. But she was trying to be strong for everyone else. Serena had lost herself to grief before, she couldn't risk doing it again, Bernie wouldn't want that.

"You have a funny way of showing it." He was like a petulant child, full of self righteous anger at the world. He had motive. Serena gripped her necklace, fiddling with the charm, maintaining some degree of control over her emotions, the same way she had done after Bernie's funeral. The funeral that Marcus had attempted to bar her from.

"You don't get to say that. I know you're in pain, Cameron, but if you're trying to provoke a reaction-" Serena tried appealing to him. Cameron twisted out of her grip, taking a few steps away from her, throwing his arms up.

"Oh come on! You don't even care that Mum went and got engaged!" Cameron cried, cutting a blow to Serena's heart once. "That she's dead!" Twice. "You should have stopped her."

Three times.

"I CARE!" Serena yelled, finally letting it out. She puffed out her cheeks, looking away from the young man in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. It was a familiar argument, not only from Cameron, but from herself. She should have stopped Bernie. Could she have stopped Bernie? They'll never know now. Her bottom lipped wobbled as she plowed forwards, "I care so much it hurts to  _ breathe _ , because I loved Bernie with everything I had and it wasn't enough! I let her go! I  _ made  _ her go! I put her back there and now she's dead!"

Her voice broke on the final word, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Cameron, for his part, watched on, his own red, tearful face stuck on a dumbfounded expression at the reaction he had elicited. Serena tore away her hand, whole body shaking.

"Of  _ course  _ I am angry. I'm furious! I'm furious at myself because I've lost another person close to me. That I let her go. That whatever I do, I close my eyes and she's there but when I open them she's gone!" Serena still wasn't sleeping. It had eased, a little. But worse than that, it was starting to get repetitive. A slow and easy slide into a depression that she  _ had  _ to fight against. She had to be strong because otherwise she would fall into blankness of a sort that was hard to climb out of. But every dream she had was of Bernie. Bernie coming home. Bernie in the garden she had drawn. Bernie showing up at Serena’s office, with an explanation that all of this had been a mistake. That she wasn't dead.

Every morning she woke up more tired than before, and to the cold and hard reality that the love of her life was dead. They say that in life, you only regret the things you didn't do. Serena would forever regret not simply letting Bernie stay. Just stay.

"And I'm furious at Bernie! I'm furious that she got herself blown up, that she can't be found, that she hurt you so badly and that she got engaged to Alex when I always thought that one day it could have been us!" Serena yelled, not caring to control her temper or her volume, but just letting the words spill out, reeling when she realised what she'd said. It was a thought she hadn't allowed voice before. But it was true. Her voice went quiet, and she looked into Cameron's eyes, so like his mother's. "When we said we'd always love each other."

Bernie and she had been through so much. There had always been that feeling of ships passing in the night. Of time and circumstance ripping them apart. Whether it was Kiev, Elinor, France, Sudan or Nairobi. Pockets of bliss in between. They'd always come back to each other. It might have been foolish, some dream perhaps, but Serena had held on to the idea that some day, some time or place, they would come together again. When Bernie was too old to be travelling as she did, and Serena had retired. When stars aligned. They'd love each other and be together for the rest of the time they had.

To hear that Alex had been engaged to Bernie, not six months later had been a shock, of course. After Alex had left the pub, Serena hasn't hesitated on having a few more glasses of wine, trying to reconcile the image she had of Berenice Wolfe in her head, with the news that she had so easily moved on. Truthfully, because Serena hadn't. Hasn't.

All the wine nights, back when they were still friends, when Bernie would sit on her couch and regale Serena with stories of her divorce process. About how she'd never marry again. Then the look in her eyes in Holby, when Serena had said that she chose Bernie. A little hope. Younger days.

Serena slumped and walked over, past Cameron to sit down on the stairs, her elbows on her knees, fingers knitted together as she bowed her head. After a moment, Cameron sat down with her.

"She would have done anything for you." It wasn't an accusation from him. It wasn't flung in her face, yet another piece to add to the picture of her blame. It was sad. It was mournful. It was a fact born out of grief. Serena wept. Ugly tears and wails broke free as she lost it, because she couldn't argue with him. She couldn't tell him that he was wrong because she knew he wasn't. Bernie already had, so many times, in so many ways and Serena had repaid her by pushing her away.

Great gulping gasps left her chest as Serena cried, and finally Cameron put an arm around her, oddly silent now but for his own hiccups and tears, and rocked her close.

"I loved her." Serena keened into Cameron's chest, fisting a hand to his blue scrubs. Her walls broke down. Serena Campbell grieved.


End file.
